Missile Plume Interpolation and Rendering Software for Simulating Low-Altitude Threats in Real-Time

The performance of early warning and missile defense optical sensors and their associated detection and tracking algorithms can be robustly evaluated using hardware-in-the-loop (HWIL) testing technology for which high-frame rate (~400 Hz) simulated imagery of the highly dynamic threat missile system is required. An engineering-level method is needed to provide on-demand, real-time, realistic plume imagery to the HWIL scene generator. Spectral Sciences, Inc. and Kinetics, Inc. propose to reduce the I/O bandwidth demands on the E-MSIG software while providing the potential to expand supported phenomenology. This will be done by transitioning the prototype FRAMES technology demonstrated in Phase I to a commercial grade library that will be incorporated into the E-MSIG software. Command line interfaces (CLIs) for assisting with plume database management and data analysis will also be developed. The capabilities developed in Phase I enable FRAMES processing of small surface-to-air missiles with the addition of a plume bending operation while providing HWIL imagery at required framerates.